Measuring electric energy efficiency in Portuguese households: A tool for energy policy
Abstract
Purpose
There is a great interest from the European Union in measuring the efficiency of energy use in households, and this is an area where EDP has done research in both data collection and methodology. This paper reports on a survey of electric energy use in Portuguese households, and reviews and extends the analysis of how efficiently households use electrical energy. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate household electrical energy efficiency in different regions using econometric analysis of the survey data. In addition, the same methodology was applied to a time-series data set, to evaluate recent developments in energy efficiency.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper describes the application to Portuguese households of a new approach to evaluate energy efficiency, developed by Filippini and Hunt (2011, 2012) in which an econometric energy demand model was estimated to control for exogenous variables determining energy demand. The variation in energy efficiency over time and space could then be estimated by applying econometric efficiency analysis to determine the variation in energy efficiency.
Findings
The results obtained allowed the identification of priority regions and consumer bands to reduce inefficiency in electricity consumption. The time-series data set shows that the expected electricity savings from the efficiency measures recently introduced by official authorities were fully realized.
Research limitations/implications
This approach gives some guidance on how to introduce electricity saving measures in a more cost effective way.
Originality/value
This paper outlines a new procedure for developing useful tools for modelling energy efficiency.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to João Gomes Aguiar, president of EDP Serviço Universal, for his support to this study. The authors are also grateful to two anonymous referees for useful comments and suggestions to this paper.
Citation
Weyman-Jones, T., Boucinha, J.M. and Inácio, C.F. (2015), "Measuring electric energy efficiency in Portuguese households: A tool for energy policy", Management of Environmental Quality, Vol. 26 No. 3, pp. 407-422. https://doi.org/10.1108/MEQ-03-2014-0035
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2015, Emerald Group Publishing Limited